“Girl from Ipanema”: bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto dies

Brazilian bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto has died aged 83 at her home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, TV Globo reported Tuesday, citing the singer’s daughter-in-law, Adriana Magalhães. According to her family, she succumbed to a heart condition. Her body will be cremated in the United States.

“She died in the house she loved and where she painted her pictures. It’s a house full of her artwork, a thousand paintings. She died the way she wanted. At that point she left us alone,” said Magalhães. “Astrud was a great artistic role model for her granddaughters and children. She was a versatile artist who sang, composed and painted.”

With her husband, Brazilian music legend João Gilberto, she introduced bossa nova to the whole world. The “New Wave” of Brazilian music was a modern blend of samba and jazz. Astrud Gilberto sang the song “Girl from Ipanema” in English, which was later performed by numerous artists, including Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Caterina Valente and Ella Fitzgerald.

“Rest in peace, my eternal muse,” wrote João Gilberto’s daughter with his second wife, Bebel Gilberto, on Instagram. “May you sing with the birds and the angels, beautiful Astrud.” Her granddaughter Sofia Gilberto wrote on Facebook: “My grandmother has become a star today and is standing next to my grandfather João Gilberto.”

Astrud Evangelina Weinert was born in 1940 as the daughter of a German immigrant and a Brazilian woman in Salvador da Bahia in the north of the country. As a child, she moved with her family to Rio de Janeiro. In 1959 she married João Gilberto and soon performed with her husband and with artists such as Nara Leão, Johnny Alf and Elza Soares.

In 1963 she took part in the album “Getz/Gilberto” by João Gilberto and saxophonist Stan Getz, arranged by Tom Jobim. For this she sang the song “The Girl from Ipanema” in a studio in New York. Years ago, she once told her version of the day that would change her life. Her husband João Gilberto told her at the hotel: “Today there is a surprise for you.” In the studio, where Getz was already waiting, João asked her “casually” if she wanted to sing along in English. “This song will make you famous,” Getz told the then 23-year-old.

The Brazilian journalist and author Ruy Castro tells the day a little differently in his bossa nova standard work “Chega de Saudade”. After that, Astrud urged her husband and Getz at the time to be allowed to join the song and sing an English version. “João tried to distract from the subject, but she was not deterred and found allies in others,” Castro described the scene.

The album “Getz/Gilberto” was a great success and received the Grammy for album of the year in 1964. “The Girl from Ipanema” won the Grammy for Best Single of the Year.

Soon after, her marriage to João Gilberto was dissolved. In the decades that followed, Astrud Gilberto made a name for herself as a musician, giving concerts all over the world and often being referred to as the “Bossa Nova Queen”. Only in Brazil was she never really appreciated. (sda/dpa)